China Mobile, China Telecom, Telus and Verizon in on testing
A handful of telecommunication operators have partnered with a pair of standards bodies to test transport software-defined networking technology, which when combined with advances in network function virtualization are expected to shape the future of the industry.
China Mobile, China Telecom, Telus and Verizon Communications are working with the Optical Interworking Forum and Open Networking Foundation to test transport SDN in lab environments beginning this month. Also joining in on the testing are KDDI R&D Laboratories, Orange and the China Academy of Telecommunications Research.
According to the standards bodies, the testing will leverage OIF’s interoperability testing experience for optical equipment with ONF’s work with the OpenFlow protocol and SDN architecture. The testing will look to demonstrate application-based, bandwidth-on-demand between data center sites, tapping into transport SDN, common interface required, interoperability needs and to highlight any operational challenges.
ONF earlier this year announced a partnership with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to further the development of NFV specifications. The organizations noted that the agreement would focus on how SDN can enable forwarding-plane support for some NFV use cases. Connected with the partnership, ONF released its OpenFlow-enabled SDN and NFV “solution brief” providing ideas for carriers in combining NFV and SDN on their networks.
Telecom operators are looking toward SDN and NFV in order to boost the speed in which they roll out services to compete against over-the-top players as well as lowering operational costs. The basic concept behind this technology is that by decoupling a network’s data plane from its control plane, administrators can essentially detach their network traffic management capabilities from the physical hardware, giving them far more oversight and control regarding the allocation of resources.
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